


The Fighter

by sootsprites



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 03:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15331005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sootsprites/pseuds/sootsprites
Summary: People didn't expect pretty girls to have anger. The south didn't have their heads totally up their ass; with Empress Celene in Orlais and Queen Anora in Ferelden, Thedas had at least woken up to the idea of a beautiful girl being smart. But so far The Iron Bull hadn't seen any woman in the south that was quite as fearsome as the woman warriors back home.Not until Hestia anyway.





	The Fighter

People didn't expect pretty girls to have anger. The south didn't have their heads totally up their ass; with Empress Celene in Orlais and Queen Anora in Ferelden, Thedas had at least woken up to the idea of a beautiful girl being smart. But so far The Iron Bull hadn't seen any woman in the south that was quite as fearsome as the woman warriors back home.

Not until Hestia anyway.

A good spy knows how to admit his weaknesses. Iron Bull had known that she was putting on an act as soon as he met her, but he hadn't realized the extent of her mask. A noblewoman disguised as a regular thief, scraggly blond hair that was obviously cut in a hurry to hide her identity, Hestia Trevelyan was practically a cliche. He’d chalked her up as a runaway noble trying to survive this stupid war that had stumbled into something bigger than herself. Easy solve, next drink is on me.

Then he'd watched her explode a man's heart with her mind. The Iron Bull decided to take a second look.

“Somehow, I figured Cassandra wouldn't let the Herald of Andraste be a bloodmage.” he remarked one night, when it was just the two of them on watch. Had he been an ordinary man, in the wash of warm yellow light flickering over her heart shaped face as Hestia tended the fire, he might've missed her flinch.

She didn't answer immediately, waited until the fire was warm and smokeless again before settling next to her pack and saying, “You’d be surprised what Cassandra is amenable to, with the end of the world at stake.”

As much as she wanted him to drop it, Iron Bull still had questions that needed answering. “I didn't think there was anyone in the south that hated blood magic as much as The Qun but Cassandra gives them a run for their money.”

Hestia reclined against her bedroll, which she'd never bothered to unpack. The firelight reflected in her stormy eyes and her face was weary. “I'm afraid my Aunt Clara had all of you beat long ago.”

Clara Trevelyan, Hestia’s aunt, mother to two of her cousins, married to a minor lord, fanatically devout Andrastian, rumored to have heaped abuses on her children to stop them developing magic, currently dying of lung disease in Ostwick. And since Iron Bull wasn't supposed to know any of that, he just tilted his head back, closed his eye and let the warmth of the fire play over his face. People don't expect big men to be patient either.

Somehow he got the feeling this woman could be worth the wait.

It took months of waiting before Hestia trusted him enough. Even though the masquerade ball at the Winter Palace was drawing nearer, Hestia, no longer Herald but Inquisitor, had them all trekking through the desert. As much fun as fighting darkspawn and phoenixes was, it was much more fun to watch her open up on unsuspecting Vints, to see all that fury poured out into one perfect storm of violence.

Though she was careful not to use the real bloody stuff when most were watching, Hestia couldn't be anything but what she was. She moved like an apostate, always with a desperate edge to her actions. She rocketed around a fight searching for vulnerable places, she loved to draw enemies into difficult terrain, would cast hexes from around boulders or blow up a cask of wine for the distraction. And the more responsibility Hestia was given, the more desperate her anger got. It almost broke her at the worst time.

That fucking rift opened up beneath them and the fell ass over tits into the fucking fade, _thank you very much Krem,_ and right when somebody needed to step up and be the hero, Hestia went to pieces. She wasn't the only one, Sera was not so quietly panicking, Vivienne was doing that eye of the hurricane thing she did when she was very unhappy and Hestia was- she was frozen. She stood there shaking, her face white as a sheet, staring at a rock formation like it was singing an aria. Bull was almost disappointed. They'd run together for months, he'd seen her take every kind of punishment, even seen the way she looked at him when his jokes got particularly blue. And though he knew, logically, that there were limits to what a person could handle, he really hadn't pegged Hestia as someone who would give up in face of fear.

But all anger comes from somewhere, and even as upset as he was, Bull noticed the way Hestia screamed when the first of those little fears came out to play. There was no time to wonder who Cautherine was or why she haunted his inquisitor.

After it was done, after the bastard was dead and Varrics heart was broken, Hestia went into her tent and did not leave for two weeks.

Cullen could handle a battle like a pro, and the mop up job would take longer but it took more than a military mind to deal with the politics in Orlais and Josephine could only deal with the bloated egos of the nobles for so long. Red sent him a bird; the note said simply, _bring her home._

So Bull took care to be only half drunk and wandering along the outskirts of Griffin Wing Keep when Hestia went out for her usually 2:30 insomniac stroll. She kept close enough to touch a hand to the cold stone, a knife in her boot and another tucked into the back of her stolen britches. He dodged the thrown knife almost by instinct and got close enough to spin her on her heel and grab the hand wielding the second knife in time to slam it against the keep wall and hold it there.

Hestia tried to use her weight to topple him but he got one arm around her waist and lifted her off her feet. “Easy boss,” he murmured in her ear. “Easy. It's only me.”

He'd had to swallow the warm feeling in his chest when, at his words, all her tension drained away. The knife dropped from Hestia's hand with a dull thump and her legs relaxed, uncurling to let her toes just brush the ground. “Bull,” Hestia matched his low whisper with one of her own, her voice hoarse from disuse. “Thank the Maker, I thought you were a darkspawn.”

“You out here looking for a fight? Because there's an army of soldiers in that keep that would fall all over themselves to let you kick their ass.”

Hestia didn't laugh, but she wanted to. He could feel her pulse in her wrist, could feel her start to tremble. It could've been the desert chill. It could've been exhaustion. It could've been their proximity. It wasn't his job to know, not anymore. “I'm not looking for anything Bull, except my knife back.” She told him. “Put me down.”

He didn't. “We gotta talk about something first Boss.”

“I'm sorry about the alliance.” Hestia told him immediately, turning her head to try to look up at him. The smell of her bathing oils was in his nose, jasmine and lemons. “I'm sorry about Gatt.”

“I'm not.” He told her, meaning it. “You made a choice to protect your men instead of a political arrangement. I'm grateful for that.”

She sighed, it was an experience he definitely enjoyed. “The chargers are practically family,” she told him, and while his heart was melting, she murmured, “I can't watch any more family die.”

Iron Bull could feel the ache in his arm so he shifted, setting Hestia back on her feet. He did not let go of her, he instead wrapped his other arm around her waist and settled her more firmly against him. She didn't seem to mind, if the sigh that escaped her lips or the sultry little shift of her hips was any indication.

“Boss, who’s Cautherine?”

He'd learned to expect anger, but that fucking fade bullshit had taken all the fight out of Hestia. She sighed and Bull heard again that weariness. “Cautherine is the darkest secret my mother ever kept.” Hestia told him. “She made me what I am. And but for an accident and some misplaced family loyalty, she is what I could've been.”

Bull knew better than to press for details. The Trevelyans kept their secrets closer than their small clothes, and asking her to divulge more could ruin this. Whatever this was. But if she curled in on herself any more, the inquisitor they all needed so badly would be completely gone. He settled for, “The girl you could've been is not who you are now though.”

“Isn't it?” Hestia laughed bitterly. “Hawke is dead because I panicked at the sight of a long dead ghost. I can't run from Coryphaeus just because I'm scared of my own reflection.”

The night was cool, the moons were brilliant and blue, bathing the expansive landscape is blue and silver light. Thought he couldn't see her face, Bull knew that Hestia was fighting back tears.

“So stop running.”

She hiccuped and laughed again, a jagged bitter sound. “I don't know how.”

He slowly and very deliberately loosened his grip, letting his arms relax and hang at his sides, shifting back to stand up straight. She scrambled away from him, finally turning to face him. Her hair was painted silver in the moonlight, her freckles dotted across her skin like stars. Bull didn't like his women sad and Hestia was no exception. It didn't matter how pretty she looked with tears on her face.

She stood there in the moonlight, looking at him. Bull could've spent a thousand years just looking at her.

Hestia took five steps and wrapped her arms as far around his waist as they would go. He caught her tight in his arms and let her breathe, drinking in the smell of jasmine and lemons. They left for Skyhold two days later.

The first time Bull kissed her, she bit his lip till she drew blood. She was a fighter, always. Bull knew this wouldn't be easy when he fell for her, but he wouldn't have his ass kicking inquisitor any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> A special thanks to kay Tommyoliverr for sharing her Trevelyan family tree with me. Trevfam is so messed up


End file.
